Have you seen or heard of the Rail Gun?

[ioweddie]

Wow!

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/video/navy-unveils-futuristic-weapon-002946184-cbs.html

 

[Harrythedog]

Wow. Just hope there's a socket on the battlefield!

 

[Colin_b]

The joy of kinetic energy.

Build your own...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH08iDj2yic

 

[Giantvanman]

Serious science question; why all the smoke and flames if there is no powder charge to ignite?

 

[Dieselman]

Serious science question; why all the smoke and flames if there is no powder charge to ignite?

The metal is being vaporised due to the current passing through it.

 

[John]

Serious science question; why all the smoke and flames if there is no powder charge to ignite?

Apparently - the electro-magnetic pulse creates that.

Listen to the commentary on the clip - explains it quite well actually.

 

[abecketts]

hope they don't make it a land based weapon and let the Brits have it, as we sit on the back of Salisbury Plain ranges an overshoot could be serious.

 

[moonloops]

Rail gun technology has been around for a while now..

 

[camerafodder]

Rail gun technology has been around for a while now..

Indeed, about a 100 years. The technology really started to gather pace about 30 years ago.

 

[camerafodder]

hope they don't make it a land based weapon and let the Brits have it, as we sit on the back of Salisbury Plain ranges an overshoot could be serious.

It would be as serious as the overshoot of any gun.

 

[moonloops]

Indeed, about a 100 years. The technology really started to gather pace about 30 years ago.

As my granddad used to say, any magic trick was done with smoke, mirrors and magnets

 

[camerafodder]

As my granddad used to say, any magic trick was done with smoke, mirrors and magnets

To quote Pink Floyd:
"Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young. In a world of magnets and miracles"

 

[abecketts]

It would be as serious as the overshoot of any gun.

true but moving at mach 7 is a little above the speed of a conventional artillery shell and wouldn't you have a sonic boom to deal with?

 

[camerafodder]

true but moving at mach 7 is a little above the speed of a conventional artillery shell and wouldn't you have a sonic boom to deal with?

Most modern artillery shells travel at supersonic speeds (although mach 7 is shifting a bit!), range is just a factor of use.

 

[cinek]

Meh, its been used some time ago, in Transformers 2.

 

[moonloops]

To quote Pink Floyd:
"Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young. In a world of magnets and miracles"

Cool, Not sure if we have amused ourselves to death yet - I will leave it to the "alien anthropologists to decide"

 

[flying haggis]

when you said rail gun I thought you meant this

 

[markjay]

I was actually thinking of Gerald Bull's 'Supergun':

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/world/middleeast/10supergun.html

[YOUTUBE]ffgWV2ILHvI[/YOUTUBE]

 

[moonloops]

when you said rail gun I thought you meant this

That's a railway gun as opposed to an electromagnetic rail gun

 

[moonloops]

A US Navy weapon - designed and built by the British.